


and draws down, the curtain of summer

by orphan_account



Category: THE iDOLM@STER: SideM
Genre: Canon Compliant, High School, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23246194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "No. Not quite." Souichirou twirls the cupcake in his hands, scrutinises the uneven swirl all the while. "This is… a hobby, I suppose."
Relationships: Kamiya Yukihiro/Shinonome Souichirou
Kudos: 2





	and draws down, the curtain of summer

**Author's Note:**

> de-anoning from the 2020 SideM Valentine's exchange for [Berry](https://twitter.com/bighappies) who wanted high school KamiShinos!

"Haven't we met somewhere before?"  
  
Souichirou eyes the stranger at the door suspiciously, tries ― albeit futilely, he's aware ― to hide the bag of flour behind his back.  
  
Hopefully the afternoon sun is bright through the window panes, just enough to dye the splotches of flour across the bridge of his nose unnoticeable, blending into the embarrassed flush of his cheeks.  
  
"The home economics classroom is an odd choice to use a pick up line," he says, an attempt, if anything, to pull a fast one.  
  
_"That wasn't―!"_ His unexpected visitor turns red, visibly fumbling, as he waves his hands around in front of him. "I mean it wouldn't be my first choice either―"  
  
The way he sighs, scratching the back of his neck brings Souichirou's attention to the pin at his collar. _A first year. Oh, thank goodness._  
  
Admittedly a far too belated realisation, but he doesn't think he could live with the mistake of speaking that way to an upperclassman, if that had happened to be the case.  
  
"I didn't think―" The stranger sighs, again. He almost seems apologetic, when he looks up, brows furrowed. "I'll stay out of your way, let me nap in the broom closet?"  
  
"I wouldn't mind if you slept on an actual chair." Souichirou takes note of his bed hair, the hint of barely-there shadows under his eyes.  
  
He trails off, slightly, distracted by the sky outside, indigo starting to seep into its gradation, dusk still settling into the beginnings of spring.  
  
"Actually, please do," he continues. "I don't think I'd make too much noise as to bother you, either."  
  
\-------  
  
"Do elective classes have a home ec project due?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
The stranger looks between the cupcake Souichirou offers him and up to Souichirou's face. He makes no move to take it, tilts his head, curious.  
  
" _Ah,_ we had P.E together," he says, as if that clarifies anything at all.  
  
"I'm afraid I don't follow," Souichirou replies, still, for some reason, holding up the cupcake between them.  
  
Now that he looks at it again, the frosting is a little lopsided. That's some thing to take note of for next time, at least.  
  
"I'm from 1-C..." Then a beat, after realising that Souichirou isn't following his train of thought, "That's why I thought you looked familiar. Remember that last time?"  
  
_"Oh." Right._ 1-A and 1-C have P.E together. If not an intentional pick up line, Souichirou would have thought he'd recognise their batch representative from the opening ceremony speech, but clearly his local friendly frequent visitor is something else.  
  
"No. Not quite." Souichirou twirls the cupcake in his hands, scrutinises the uneven swirl all the while. "This is… a hobby, I suppose." He lets his shoulders slump, a show of rare respite. "Unfortunately I don't have an oven at home."  
  
Kamiya finally takes the proffered confection. He hmms quietly, as if in understanding ― of what, Souichirou doesn't quite know.  
  
"Is that why you're here all the time?" he asks.  
  
"So it was a pick up line."  
  
_"No!"_  
  
\------  
  
_"Kamiya!"_  
  
Something in that exact moment draws Souichirou to look ― up, across the gymnasium, to where the voice he hears carries his line of sight. He sees the stranger from their afternoons in the home economics classroom in-between brushing shoulders, class 1-C students in the midst of their P.E class basketball rotation.  
  
He wonders how much of his dishevelled hair is bedhair as per usual, and how much of it is the aftermath of getting hit by a basketball in the face, going by his classmates' following exchange.  
  
_"Don't worry about it! We'll get them next time!"_  
  
Kamiya's sheepish smile, the way he twirls the flyaway strand of hair by his cheek isn't unlike the one he sees every other afternoon ― warm, if a little distracted, acceptance, somehow, of his surroundings, if nothing else.  
  
_"We're counting on you. Kamiya!"_  
  
\------  
  
"As hilarious as the image of an honour student sneaking around to use the school oven is," Kamiya's point made invalid, just by helping himself to the school kettle, pouring hot water into a cup of instant noodles. "Have you considered joining the sweets research club?"  
  
"Oh, right. I can do that." Souichirou doesn't stop whisking his bowl of meringue. He doesn't even give the thought further consideration. "What about you? It's not like you come here to skip class. Is the going home club not an option?"  
  
He lets Kamiya pilfer a strawberry out of the tupperware he brings them in. His expression is one he can't read, strained somehow, despite it's most schooled he he has seen him.  
  
"Oh right, I can do that." He decidedly parrots back, a cheeky smile.  
  
Souichirou says nothing, lets the air hang between them as he pointedly pulls the tupperware opposite his arm, away from Kamiya.  
  
\-------  
  
The window panes cast shadows across the classroom, stretching far along the point where day reaches its longest.  
  
Souichirou's footsteps echoes a little too loud in his own ears. He counts between the tiles, the gaps in between he takes to cross the distance.  
  
"I'm about to head home for the day," Souichirou says, to Kamiya by the windowsill, his eyes closed, head leaning back.  
  
He doesn't open his eyes, even as he replies, dazed, somewhat, closer to a whisper, "I think I'll stay here for a bit longer."  
  
Souchirou looks out the window ― the afternoon sun taking its time, clockwork comfort, students from their school's sport teams settling down, going through their goodbyes for the day.  
  
"Remember to actually go home."  
  
Somehow he knows Kamiya's breaths are deliberate, controlled by virtue of feigned sleep.  
  
Nonetheless, he leaves him alone.  
  
\-------  
  
He catches him outside for the first time, enroute to the home economics class. Kamiya stops at the end of the hall for a moment before tilting his head, starting to take a turn completely opposite of where ― Souichirou assumes ― he intends to go.  
  
He takes a chance, through the tug at the back of his throat that he viscerally feels ― his name, as he had remember it, foreign, taking shape.  
  
"Kamiya?"  
  
The turns towards him, comical the way he jumps, startled and bewildered in equal parts.  
  
"You… know my name?" he says, slowly, disbelief palpable.  
  
"Never from the person in question, no," Souichirou says.  
  
"Ah," Kamiya averts his gaze, up to the ceiling, downwards, a sheepish smile as he scratches the side of his jaw. "Now I feel bad that I don't know yours."  
  
"Thank goodness." Souichirou sighs, theatrics, mostly, heaving his shoulders for show. "Now I can really be sure that it wasn't a pick up line."  
  
"Are you still hung up on that?" Kamiya's shoulders visibly drops, upturned eyes.  
  
"It was just a joke." It might have been the first time Souichirou smiles around him, now that he thinks about it -- small at the corner of his lips, one Kamiya might have not even caught.  
  
He walks away, toeing into a puddles of sunlight like stepping stones, rounding the corner down into the adjoining hallway.  
  
"Mostly."  
  
\-------  
  
"Shinonome!" he hears from somewhere next to him.  
  
"Oh?" Slowly he turns, away from the announcement board by the faculty office, surprised to find Kamiya, a few feet's distance away. "How did you find out?"  
  
Kamiya sharply points to the board, their batch's end of semester grades in full display, Souichirou's name and class within the top three.  
  
"Ah."  
  
Then, Souichiou makes the mistake of looking down, through the names across the ranks, only to see Kamiya's near the bottom.  
  
_"Ah."_  
  
\-------  
  
It's well into the dog days of summer when Souichirou finds himself working on setting a lemon glaze over a batch of dome cakes. Kamiya's voice comes drifting as quiet murmurs, offbeat, a white noise of Yosano Akiko interspersed between the constant whirr of the classroom air conditioning.  
  
He stops mid-verse, sighs for the whole duration of Souichirou piping chocolate ribbons.  
  
"Do you think they'll send me back to middle school if I don't pass remedials?" Souichirou doesn't even need to look up to know how Kamiya would have dropped his head, letting his folded arms cushion his cheek.  
  
He had to stop himself from shrugging, though out of pure reflex, lest he ruins his hard work. "Maybe."  
  
"That sounds legitimately like a threat coming from you," Kamiya groans.  
  
"My only threat is you get none of these if you don't continue memorising those tanka," Souchirou retorts, plain, curt.  
  
_"What―"_ The way he sounds practically scandalised is ― all things considered ― genuinely hilarious.  
  
"Wind from the sea, the shimmering candle light…" Souichirou starts, instead.  
  
The millisecond pause Kamiya takes says all too much of what answer is more or less to come.  
  
"To the Temple of Kiyomizu, on this cherry blossom moonlit night?"  
  
"I'm more amazed that you think Kiyomizu is anywhere near the sea." Souichirou feels the immense obligation to physically put his piping bag down, turning, finally, towards his friend to give him a pointed look.  
  
"It… isn't?"  
  
"I…" Souichirou considers for a full moment, the possibility of Kamiya just messing with him. "We're both from Kansai."  
  
"Is that right?" is Kamiya's reply, an easy segue into a Kansai accent.  
  
"Stop it, we're not becoming a _Manzai._ " Souichirou responds accordingly, taking the few, but necessary steps away from his work table so that he could deliver a swift chop right at the top of Kamiya's head.  
  
\-------  
  
Kamiya smiles, when he turns to him. Midway down the hallway, left of the faculty office, Souichiro's hand falls from his shoulders.  
  
Down, past Kamiya's shoulder blades, white cotton, short-sleeved shirt where he remembers black wool of their gakuran, not a few months back.  
  
He hears paper rustling. Kamiya shuffling his feet, his hands behind his back.  
  
Sparing a glance backwards, ever so slightly, Soichirou worries over the creases he puts under his fingers, a piece of paper he himself hides behind him.  
  
The first paper Kamiya shows him is his end of term remedials, all in full marks.  
  
And then, as if on cue, he starts, "Ready, set..."  
  
"Go," in tandem, two breaths suspended.  
  
The second one comes with the end of summer, autumn peeking in through the open windows.  
  
Kamiya is the brightest he has seen, his expression soft, crinkles at the corners of his eyes.  
  
"With the way you're going we might end up in the same class," Souichirou says, teasing.  
  
Each of their prospective second year class forms show that they both had rounded out the humanities as their preferred course. Relief settles into Kamiya in the way he laughs, his shoulders slack, a gentle tilt of his head back.  
  
"Guess we'll be together for a while longer, huh?" he says, perhaps, a prognosis of which to go by.


End file.
